Hooked
by Francesca Wayland
Summary: This is a follow-up to Neither A Soldier Nor A Gentleman, and it takes place just before and during the opening scenes of Hounds of Baskerville in the context that they occurred not long after the events of Karachi. Why was Sherlock was behaving so erratically in those scenes?


This has been sitting on my hard drive for three freaking years and I'm so sick of looking at it, so it's not polished at all and it doesn't have much of an ending but I want to get it out into the Adlock universe…

It's is a follow-up to _Neither A Soldier Nor A Gentleman_ , and it takes place just before and during the opening scenes of _Hounds of Baskerville_ in the context that they occurred not long after the events of Karachi. It's basically my headcanon for why Sherlock was behaving so erratically in those scenes, and shipping goggles are FIRMLY on.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the Sherlock writers were paying homage to the canon story _The Adventure of Black Peter_ in that section of the episode, so I briefly expand upon/update it here.

Finally, this is within what canon allows, meaning that unfortunately it doesn't give any further information about what Irene Adler is doing or where she is. It's purely from Sherlock's point of view, and examines how he is coping (or not) with the aftermath of his time with The Woman.

* * *

 **Hooked**

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

* * *

In the first floor bedroom of 221B Baker Street, just as the faint ambient glow of pre-dawn crept around the drawn curtains, Sherlock Holmes surged awake with a shout, a name, hovering on his lips. He came to the barest-enough consciousness to choke it off in his throat, and only a harsh but voiceless grunt emerged instead, followed by the sound of his increasingly ragged breathing, which plateaued just short of hyperventilation.

For a long moment he lay amongst his tangled bedclothes, drenched in sweat and feeling overwhelmed and disorientated. His mind was still completely consumed by the vivid dream that had jolted him awake, and he 'knew' with almost perfect certainty that if he threw his arm out to the side it would land against the heated skin of The Woman. She had been there just a moment before, murmuring to him and working his body into a frenzy.

When the fog of confusion cleared slightly and he realised that she wasn't there—hadn't ever been in his bed like that—he growled and gritted his teeth in frustration, at both his unfocused mental state, and the flash of bitter disappointment that his realisation had brought. It wasn't so much that he was alone, because prior to John that had been his status quo—it was that in the wake of the dream he actually felt lonely in that state.

Unfortunately such an ache had been quite familiar in recent months, but its present recurrence was dismaying in the extreme. He had grown confident that, despite a few slight but unfortunate lapses, he was once again master of his emotions and his libido after letting them rule him so unequivocally several months prior. Yet the dream showed him the arrogance of that: it had slipped through the cracks of his restraint and undermined his progress with absurd ease and suddenness. He wasn't in control, not at all; brief as that time had been, its aftermath seemed to have the reverse of a half-life.

Because apparently despite all the work he'd done to keep his time in Karachi in the past, and the great effort he'd made to distance himself from all that he had experienced there, a random scenario produced by his limbic system during REM sleep could so effectively derail him, and push him right back to where he'd been when he'd first returned.

He looked around the room, still breathing heavily, and tried to ground himself in his present reality, to banish the lingering emotional and physical echoes of the dream. His eyes darted over his vintage periodical table, his campaign-style chest of drawers, the framed portrait of Dmitri Mendeleev, a bust that was his one token from his childhood home (and only because it was of Goethe), and whilst they assured him that he was physically in his bedroom, they still couldn't pull him away from the clutches of his dream. He still sensed it curling in his chest and his belly, seducing him.

Worse even than the realisation that he was not nearly in as much command as he had believed was the awareness that despite the risk of inevitable fallout, he still burned with desire to surrender to the dream again. He _wanted_ to let it re-consume him.

 _Ah, temptation_ , he thought with wary familiarity, and he fell back against his pillow and pushed perspiration-heavy locks of hair away from his forehead with both hands.

He had become more acquainted with the concept recently than he had in the sum of all his previous years—and not just when he had been in her company. In the weeks and even months following their time together, the triplicate feelings of temptation, yearning, and impatience had been constant antagonists.

She had awoken something in him, or to use her words, "incited something in him," something that had been practically impossible to tame in the rocky aftermath of their… interaction, and to his dismay he had been forced to resort to occasional self-abuse to maintain mental clarity.

It had been almost as if he were undergoing adolescence all over again—bouts of sudden and intense but unconsummatable lust, agitation that could not be calmed by any number of fascinating experiments, and mood swings. Except that this was arguably worse. At least as a teenager he had been able to convince himself that the impulses he experienced were hormone-based and biological, and not to be confused with something he actually, cognitively desired. Then, he'd been able to resolve not to let such base urges dominate his will (…for the most part). Now, though, a significant portion of his mind knew he wanted to succumb to those impulses just as much as his body was telling him he did. It was only his beleaguered discipline and an intentionally full caseload that prevented him from attempting to contact her again.

But now, just as he had no cases in the docket, this dream had swept in with its Platonic version of what he had known with The Woman, illustrating in bittersweet starkness all that he no longer had. As John might put it, it was sod's law; even if Moriarty himself had planned it the timing could not have been designed to be more perfectly devastating.

And so he was exquisitely torn between wanting to fully return to the dream, to try to relax again and let the pervasive emotions and arousal take over again and supplement his own fantasies for as he took care of the, and the much more practical and logical option of seeing if there were any case requests on his or John's site. He knew that going along with the former was weak and indulgent, and would undermine so much of his progress—and yet…

He made a loud noise of frustration and threw himself to his side, bunching the pillow aggressively under his head, but still his mind remained full of the scenario of the dream and his body felt taut, electric, and impossibly demanding. The lingering sensations of it were relentless and overwhelming, and powerless to resist, he gave in.

Several minutes later he flopped back against the bed, limp and gasping but feeling even worse, because as arousing and intense as the dream had been, the attendant emotions were exponentially much more powerful. Succumbing to the prurient had been a desperate attempt to quell his susceptibility to the dream, but the act had only served to emphasise that he really was alone, and remind him that the physical aspect of his relationship with Irene Adler was only one fragment of the whole.

Throughout the dream he had felt assured and confident in his deep attraction, and the strong romantic bond between them. The emotions had been so powerful and unadulterated—not weighted with any doubt, mistrust, or insecurity—so that in defiance of all the effort he had made to forget her, forget what they'd experienced together, it was as if no time had passed at all.

After, he had returned home on a high but soon sunk into a vague depression as the lose/lose reality of the situation dawned on him. The glimpse into another life had been brief, and just enough to enjoy the pleasures and none of the mundanities. Even when John had delivered Mycroft's message, which finally confirmed to Sherlock that his plan had succeeded, he'd mostly been interested in the fact that John had her phone, and he'd grasped it like a lifeline. Now in the wake of his dream the Vertu seemed pathetically inadequate, to the point of that it felt preposterous that he could've ever thought such an avatar could stand in for The Woman herself.

 _God_ , but he needed a cigarette.

His decision to quit smoking (again) coincided with when he had finally resolved to make real efforts to move on from his time with The Woman. It was a unified and masochistic self-denial of any type of physical gratification, particularly since smoking evoked very specific memories that he'd prefer to suppress. He had been ruthless in his enforcement, going so far as to bribe various vendors and off-license cashiers in the surrounding area not to sell to him.

None of that mattered now, he was in for a penny and in for a pound, and besides work the ritual of smoking had been the only thing that had ever calmed him. In the absence of work he would do whatever he could to get his hands on a pack, even if it meant going all the way to Croyden.

Several minutes later he was dressed and out of the door into the cold early morning air, which chilled his flushed skin but didn't calm the racing of his heart.

There was too little traffic down Baker Street at this time of day to catch a cab, so he walked to the Marylebone Road where it only took moments for one to pull over.

"Where to?"

"Anywhere in Zone Two." He had to get away from the flat and the dream; the destination was irrelevant as long as there were cigarettes to be had.

 _Discipline_ , he admonished himself, but then made a noise of disgust. He obviously had no 'discipline' whatsoever, as evidenced by the indulging of his baser desires earlier and the determination to get ahold of smokes now. He'd long acknowledged that that had been the case when he and Irene had been together, but he'd believed that with 3,460 miles between them that he would be able to exhibit more restraint in his life. He'd _thought_ he had succeeded—until the dream had come along and undermined everything, with such damnable and immediate ease.

If he wasn't careful John was going to notice. He might not be equipped with Sherlock's powers of observation, but he was certainly not a fool and he was fairly astute in picking up on emotional cues.

So if not discipline he would have to turn to distraction. But _how_?

As if in answer to prayers he didn't believe in, his phone beeped a text alert, and when he looked down he felt a surge of relief and pure affection for DI Lestrade—his deliverer in this darkest of times.

Someone had been killed _, thank God_ , and even better it seemed as the murder had been committed in the most fascinating and brutal way.

As he scrolled through the bloody crime scene photos and initial incidence reports he felt his spirits lift, and for the first time since waking up that morning he felt as if both feet were once again planted on _terra firma_.

"Change of plan," he called up to the cabbie. "New stop: Smithfield."

Five a.m. on a Monday – they should just be getting into the swing of things at the meat market, and he was in need of a butchered pig.

* * *

Several hours later and feeling much better, to the point where he questioned whether there really had been much of a crisis at, Sherlock hit Lestrade's number on speed-dial.

The other man answered on the first ring. "Sherlock. Do you have anything?"

"Of course," he answered, and the all-consuming rush he felt from the mental breakthrough was as palpable a relief as a shot of morphine. "Your killer is a harpooner by profession, as opposed to someone who simply used it as the weapon of opportunity you seem to think it is."

"How'd you know we—"

" _Well_ it's rather pointy and since the victim was in the merchant navy and he had it hanging in the study where he was killed it's not really a leap that you would come to that assumption, wrong as it is. Oh, and your killer is almost certainly a Japanese national."

"How can you—"

"Simple. Process of elimination."

Lestrade was silent on the other end of the line, and Sherlock could practically _see_ his expression of puzzlement, and gave a small roll of his eyes.

"I had a go with the same type of harpoon for over an hour on a dead pig, and apart from generating some interesting blood spatter patterns I got nowhere—"

Lestrade exploded with, "How the _hell_ did you manage to find a bloody harpoon at this time in the morn—"

Sherlock smirked at that – bloody harpoon, indeed – but answered, "Unimportant."

After the Black Lotus Tong case Sherlock had developed contacts at the National Antiquities Museum, but due to the early hour a call to Mycroft had been necessary to actually get his hands on one, and Sherlock didn't intend to admit it.

" _As_ I was saying, as someone with neither experience nor the requisite upper-body strength, I found it impossible to actually impale the body on the harpoon. And I was very thorough and inventive in my various attempts. But only someone who has made his livelihood in such a way would be able to kill a man in the manner we saw. And harpooning… It's rather a niche skill, wouldn't you say? Japan is the only country that still practices the traditional form of hand-harpooning; Scandinavian countries use harpoons that fire from cannons, and that just doesn't develop the same muscle groups and hand eye coordination necessary for this murder," he said sardonically. "Could be a big fish hunter, but with the type of harpoon used, it seems unlikely. That would call for a much smaller-gauge weapon, and a less dense surface to penetrate…. which brings us back to where we were before. Therefore: professional harpooner. Japanese."

"As you mentioned, Peter Carey was a merchant navy captain, he was bound to have plenty of contact with people from J—"

"Cross-reference any Japanese acquaintances or associates you uncover with the Home Office to see if they were in the country at the tie of the murder," Sherlock cut in. "If that doesn't pan out, look at landing cards from the past six months; they require that people list their professions. Check for derivatives of whaler – since it's not very PC, is it – such as boatsteerer, possibly boatheader, sailor—"

"Oi, Sherlock! We don't have the funding for the overtime hours—"

"Your decision." His tone was dismissive and unconcerned but engineered to manipulate Lestrade into seeing the error of his ways and come around to Sherlock's point of view.

Lestrade took what sounded like a calming breath, which Sherlock found unhelpfully dramatic. "Can you give me anything more specific other than I should look for—" he was obviously casting his mind around for something—"Queequeg?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"I've given you everything you need to close the case. Let me know if there any further developments."

Without another word he ended the call, but all of his pleased satisfaction seemed to go with it so that he felt abruptly sapped and hollow. As he stood on Newgate Street trying but failing to hail a cab that ennui ratcheted into the agitation he'd felt earlier.

He then attempted to request cabs via an app, but as soon as the drivers approached and saw that he was the fare, they sped past or took abrupt turns.

Early morning commuters began to trickle by as well, and when he incurred several gasps and most people crossed to the other side of the road, he glanced down at himself and saw that he was far more drenched in blood than he'd realised. In the heat of the moment he'd been too intent on recreating the deceased's injuries with the murder weapon, and the castoff hadn't even crossed his mind. But now he saw that not only was he covered in blood spatter, but that he smelled like an abattoir as well.

His mouth went dry, not because of the gore, that didn't faze him, but because the sense of smell was a primary retriever of memories and now that he wasn't engrossed in his work the scent of the pig's blood triggered a flashback. Last time he had dealt with fresh blood of any significant quantity had been when he'd engineered a false execution video of Irene Adler, in order to convince the proper parties (of whom his brother was one) that she was truly dead.

He thought that The Woman would appreciate that macabre twist on the usual romantic connotation of perfume. For him it only caused the force of his dream come roaring back again, as if the intervening hours that had passed were non-existent.

He trudged to Barbican tube station and just as he pulled his oyster card from his pocket his phone buzzed.

 _As you're apparently out, mind picking up some more weetabix before you head back to the flat? *Someone's* used the last of it to grow mould cultures._

He dashed off _On the tube_ then boarded the train, where a young boy in a school uniform slightly too-small for him stared at him with wide brown eyes. Sherlock noted that this was probably the first year he had been permitted to take the tube to school by himself, and flashed him what he felt was a reassuring, bracing smile.

"Nothing to be alarmed about! I might very well have just put paid to a killer."

The boy's eyes widened even further as he swept his gaze over Sherlock's blood-splattered clothes, and he made a beeline for the opposite end of the carriage, though he quickly turned again so that his back wasn't to Sherlock.

"Oh it's _just_ pig's blood!" he snapped, but it didn't seem to do anything to reassure the goggling, horror-struck passengers around him.

At King's Cross the first person in a group of commuters actually froze in the doorway and caused a pile-up, before hastily backing out and selecting a different carriage. A few people continued in, but with the studied nonchalance of those who wanted to make it clear that as urban dwellers, nothing could faze them. With Sherlock's nerves already so strained he found this just as grating.

When he disembarked at Baker Street he spotted the person who had caused the blockade hurriedly get out and consult with a TfL officer, then point in his direction. Before the officer could look up or take action, Sherlock slid into the Way Out stairwell, and when he heard the shout, "Oi! _You_ there!" come from the platform, he actually sprinted for the exit, gritting his teeth. Pursuing was one thing, being pursued himself was not something he relished, particularly not by some TfL idiot who had the wrong impression.

Racing out through the Baker Street exit, he headed north in a full run, holding the harpoon aloft in front of him and dodging pedestrians, not even slowing to see if he were being tracked. He only stopped when he was inside his flat, and he planted the harpoon on the floor much harder than necessary to vent some of his agitation.

"Well _that_ was tedious."

John stared at him with an expression almost identical the tube passengers and Baker Street pedestrians. "You went on the tube like _that_..."

"None of the cabs would take me," he answered through gritted teeth, then stalked out of the room down the hall.

"Are you going to tell me whether Lestrade is going to show up at our door, or—"

"It's _just_ pig's blood!" he repeated with exasperation as he turned the shower onto full power and shoved the harpoon inside, feeling even more unsettled now than he had before he'd left the flat that morning. The minor annoyance of having to take the tube and then being chased was insult atop of the injury that his case had only provided him temporary relief.

"Ohhhh," came John's reply and Sherlock mentally nodded to himself.

"And that's supposed to explain everything, is it?" John said a beat later, and Sherlock realised that the first comment had been sarcastic.

Sherlock stalked back out to the front room.

"It's for a case, if you're _so_ _keen_ _to_ _know_." He punctuated the last words with a sarcastic, breathless delivery.

John nodded for a moment, then paused with an obvious new thought and leaned forward. "Listen... the pig wasn't _alive_ when—"

"Oh for—!" Sherlock cried, whipping his head around to glare at John, before pacing back to his bedroom.

"No, then. No?" John called after him.

" _No_ ," Sherlock shouted from the corridor. "Although that's pretty rich given the bacon that's in the refrigerator."

"That's not the same thi—"

Sherlock slammed his bedroom door against the last of John's words then started stripping, caught up again in the strange and coursing manic energy he had felt since this morning, his heart pounding more than could be explained by the brief sprint.

His ringtone sounded just as he was stepping into a fresh pair of trousers, and he set his clean shirt on the bed to jab at the answer icon.

"Lestrade."

"Sherlock, hi. I wanted to let you know that we've got a strong suspect on the Carey case. We're putting together an affidavit for an arrest warrant now, but I think we've got our man."

"You're welcome," Sherlock said, but he felt a creeping sense of dread at the loss of his best chance for distraction.

"Well you were wrong about checking those records, he immigrated here in 2009."

"From Japan, yes?"

"Well yes—"

"And there wasn't any other characteristic besides his nationality that called your attention to him, anything outwardly suspicious?"

" _No_ , but—"

"Then as I said, _you're welcome_ ," he growled, before hitting End.

Usually such a conversation would have brought Sherlock a measure of satisfaction, but this time he just stared at his phone, and the sense of alarm intensified. Part of him had been hoping he'd got it wrong so that he'd have to rework his theory, because he _needed_ a case, _needed_ to be distracted, and—

 _What's she doing right now_? he wondered, the unbidden thought as demanding as a cramp and nearly as unwanted. It was 3:30 in the morning Eastern Standard Time, so the odds were that she was asleep, even if she'd had a late night seeing to clients—if she did even that anymore. ... _If_ she were even still in New York. She could have easily taken the money and identity and used it to leverage another one so as to add yet another buffer of protection. It's probably what he would've have done, after all.

The lack of data he had on her was both maddening and merciful.

He gave sharp, contemptful shake of his head and finished dressing, then turned to his laptop and hit refresh to his website, desperate for another outlet – anything would do.

A surge of relief went through him as he saw that he had a new request, but his lip twisted as he skimmed his eyes over the content.

"Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes. I can't find Bluebell anywhere. Please, please, please can you help? I like to look at your stories and the stories John Watson has put on there. Is he a real Dr? I know that you try and help people and try and find things that have got lost. Bluebell is not a person so it might not seem important but she is very important. Not like a person but a rabbit. I don't know what happened but it was funny. Bluebell started to glow at night time. Like a fairy. I went down to the garden and locked her hutch for the night but when I got there the next morning before went to school she had gone. The hutch was still shut and locked up. Please, please, please say you'll help me. Lots of love Kirsty Stapleton aged 8."

 _Careful what you wish for_ , he thought wryly about his previous thought that any case would do. Desperate for distraction and some sort of outlet for his energy, and _this_ is what he had on offer – a farce from an eight-year-old.

Growling loudly he slammed his laptop shut, his agitation growing with each passing minute.

There _had_ to be something better than the case of the glowing, vanishing rabbit, and if clients weren't recruiting him, perhaps he ought to recruit. Surely there was something in the newspaper that was baffling some police jurisdiction somewhere in the country or continent, he spotted such things on a daily basis.

He headed down the corridor, paused as he passed the bathroom door, then backtracked to grab the now-clean harpoon on some impulse.

John looked at him with a wary eye when he entered the living room, but when Sherlock demanded John tell him to check for potential cases in his paper he was more than eager to comply, apparently just as keen on finding work for Sherlock as Sherlock was.

As John scanned the pages Sherlock waited, glancing over at him in a blend of irked impatience and hope and throwing the harpoon from hand to hand to expend some of his nervous physical energy.

"Nothing?" he prompted after a minute of silence.

"A military coup in Uganda..."

"Mm," he dismissed. That wouldn't quite do; it was Mycroft's area, not his. International affairs were none of his concern, unless they concerned— _ABORT_.

His eyes narrowed involuntarily, but fortunately John's voice interrupted the dangerous narrative and he looked over, hoping for some respite.

To his dismay he saw that John was chuckling. "Another photo of you with the, er..." he gestured towards the paper and Sherlock saw that they'd run that tired picture of him in the ear hat.

Not only chuckling, then, but doing so at Sherlock's expense. He let out a groan of disgust and continued to pace.

"Erm. Cabinet reshuffle...?"

"Nothing of importance—oh, _GOD_ ," he roared.

That left only one respite - the same thing to which he had turned in desperation early that morning, before the brief reprieve of the Peter Carey case.

He sharpened his gaze and eyed his flatmate pointedly. "John," he said in a tone that offered no room for negotiation, "I need some. Get me some."

John studied him levelly for a moment then said "No," with a short, dismissive shake of the head before returning to his paper.

" _Get_ me some," he repeated. Hadn't John heard his tone of urgency? This was a demand, not a request.

" _No_." John raised an admonishing finger. "Cold turkey, we agreed."

Sherlock scowled over his words, not giving a damn what they'd 'agreed.' The conditions that had existed when that accord had been struck no longer applied.

"Anyway, you've paid everyone off, remember? No one within a two-mile radius will sell you any."

" _Stupid_ idea. Whose idea was that?"

John cleared his throat pointedly, but Sherlock ignored him. Being reminded of his original reason for quitting smoking was entirely counterproductive to what he was trying to achieve now.

Instead he bellowed, "Mrs Hudson!" then without waiting to listen if she were coming began to tear the flat apart, not starting logically but simply with what was closest.

It was gratifying to pour his manic energy into being destructive, which told him all the more how crucial it was that he find the stash. It was almost as satisfying as taking his overwhelming emotions out on the pig carcass this morning, though not quite.

In his frenzy he barely registered John speaking.

"Look, Sherlock, you're doing _really well_. Don't give up now."

"Tell me where they are – please," he asked, feigning humility. "Tell me. Please."

Something about that triggered another memory and he mentally flinched. Indirectly, Irene did finally get him to beg twice.

No joy, though – John saw straight through the artifice.

"Can't help, sorry."

"I'll let you know next week's lottery numbers," Sherlock tossed out as a last resort.

John chuckled at once, and Sherlock grimaced.

"It was worth a try."

He looked around, inspiration struck, and he dove forward towards the hearth.

" _Hoo_ -hoo," he heard from behind him as he carried on searching.

"My secret supply—what have you done with my secret supply?" he demanded without looking up.

"Eh?" Mrs Hudson asked.

" _Cigarettes_. What have you done with them, where are they?"

"You know you never let me touch your things!" He heard her make a judgmental sound. "Oh-ho, _chance_ would be a fine thing."

"I thought you weren't my housekeeper," Sherlock said coldly.

"I'm not," she retorted with equal coldness.

Sherlock growled, throwing up his hands, and stalked past her to grab at the harpoon again.

"Look, I'll make a cuppa, and maybe you can put away your harpoon."

"I need something stronger than tea!" Sherlock roared, brandishing the antiquated weapon, then murmured, "Seven per cent stronger..."

He hadn't meant to say that, hadn't even meant to _think_ it. He shook himself, deeply shaken by the resurfacing of that particular yearning, which hadn't beckoned to him for several years. That, more than anything so far, informed him just how serious, and dangerous, this situation was. But he could not allow himself to be led down that path, as tempting as the euphoria and oblivion of his preferred solution was.

No, he needed to continue seeking distraction – wherever he could find it.

He narrowed his eyes at Mrs Hudson and then pointed the harpoon at her, ignoring her startled response and focusing all his scrutiny on her left sleeve.

" _You've_ been seeing Mr Chatterjee again."

"Pardon?"

"Sandwich shop," he said, narrating his stream of consciousness. "That's a new dress, but there's flour on the sleeve. You wouldn't dress like that for baking."

"Sherlock..." came John's warning voice, but he steamrolled right over it.

In a sharp spasm of motion he adjusted the aim of the harpoon so that it targeted her hand next.

"Thumbnail—tiny traces of foil. Been at the scratch cards again—we all know where _that_ leads, don't we?"

He made a show of exaggeratedly sniffing at the air, too keyed up and agitated to stop himself even as a part of him was watching this entire display with disgust.

" _Mm_ , Kasbah Nights. Pretty racy for the first thing on a Monday morning, wouldn't you agree? I've written a little blog on the identification of perfumes; it's on the website, you should look it up."

There was a mental sensation like snagging a rough fingernail on fabric as he recalled what had inspired that particular endeavour. It had been the result of his other coping method, compartmentalisation – an attempt to place The Woman's scent and its effect upon him within the confines of the work in the aftermath of meeting her. He was far beyond compartmentalisation as a tactic now; as her perfume had been then _she_ was everywhere now, and his sense of urgency escalated.

" _Please_ ," Mrs Hudson was saying, but he ignored her, projecting all of his own frustration onto her insignificant romantic woes. If he couldn't manage his own affairs, at least he could resolve someone else's. (or perhaps, he conceded to himself, it was that if he couldn't get what he wanted, then neither could she…) Regardless, she _was_ better off knowing and so the outcome justified the means.

"Wouldn't put your hopes on that cruiser, Mr. Chatterjee," he declared with an exhilarating feeling of ruthlessness. "He's got a wife in Doncaster that nobody knows about."

"Sherlock!" John cried, sounding appalled.

" _Well_ , nobody except me!"

"I don't know _what_ you're talking about, I really don't."

Mrs Hudson turned on her heel and fled, slamming the door behind her as Sherlock leapt over the back of his chair to sit on his heels, tucking his knees to his chest and rocking to and fro.

Making ruthless deductions about Mrs Hudson had been satisfying in the same way the cigarettes he hadn't found would have been: it provided short-term gratification but lacked any long-term benefit. Even the twinge of regret felt the same.

To top it off John looked furious with him, though that development was nothing compared to the storm of confusion, helplessness, and restless agitation raging within his mind.

"What the _bloody hell_ was all that about?" his friend demanded, and Sherlock let out out a hard, frustrated sigh.

"You don't understand," he said, his tone betraying the barest hint of the bleakness that he felt.

"Go after her and apologise."

 _Go after her?_ he thought, and the thought was as seductive as the idea of his seven per cent solution, if not more so. Memory transposed over that morning's dream came to him, both a tonic and a toxin, and his heart began to race.

Yes, why _not_ go— But 'apologise', that didn't make sense.

Realisation hit that John was referring to Mrs Hudson, and it burst his brief bubble of fantasy.

"Oh John, I envy you so much."

"You envy me," John repeated, his voice going flat and his eyes narrowing.

"Your mind, so placid, so straightforward, barely used…"

He was aware in an abstract sort of way that he sounded condescending, and perhaps in part he was. But there was a good part of him that was sincere too; for John the greatest crisis of the morning was that his flatmate had upset their landlady – and with information that, while perhaps upsetting to hear, actually did benefit her. Alright, so maybe there was some resentment informing his words as well.

"Mine's like an engine, racing out of control; a rocket, tearing itself to pieces, trapped on the launch pad..."

Meanwhile he could almost physically feel himself losing his mind, and his mental control spinning away from him.

"I _need_ a _case_!" he bellowed.

"You've just solved one!" John shot back in the same tone. "By..." he cast around in his mind, trying to phrase what Sherlock had done, "harpooning a dead pig, apparently."

Sherlock groaned with aggravation. He had just explained out all that he was experiencing to John and John still couldn't grasp it. Sherlock really did envy him, although it was still hatefully frustrating and contrasted against the understanding he shared with The Woman even more. "That was this _morning_ ," he muttered, "When's the next one?"

John sucked his teeth for a moment, then replied, "Nothing on the website."

Sherlock stood then swung his open laptop over at John, who intercepted it smoothly and moved it into his lap. There may have been nothing on John's website but there was on his, and desperate times called for desperate measures. Even the indignity of treating Bluebell the Rabbit like a viable investigation was preferable to this indignity of his own making.


End file.
